"You have lost all right this day to demand satisfaction of any gentleman; the only weapon I should use upon you is a horse-whip."
The Count spoke so loud that his words were heard by all the by-standers. "Bravo!" they exclaimed, while Bertram, trembling with rage, half drew, his sabre from its sheath. His brother officers, however, closed in a group around Count Waldheim, as if to shield him from attack.
Bertram stood alone. He might have had the courage to reply to Waldheim's mortal insult by a cut with his sabre; but he could not brave such numbers of antagonists. With an oath, he dashed the sabre back into its scabbard, cast a glance of deadly hatred about him, and strode away. Behind him he heard scornful laughter and loud expressions of contempt, but he did not venture to heed them or to look back.
CHAPTER VII.
In the heart of the Tyrol, where the Rothwalderbach and Schwarzenbach unite to form the waters of the Tausenser Aar, lies the village of Tausens; it is the centre of the most retired portion of the Tyrolean highlands.
In former years, before there was any railway near, scarcely a single stranger ever visited Tausens, although the village is only about four leagues distant from the nearest town, which is reached by a very good high-road. Since this town, however, has been provided with a railway station the village is somewhat more frequented, although even now its visitors are still confined to a few stout Alpine explorers, who pass through Tausens to wander up the Schwarzenbach valley and find a path over the lofty Schiechjoch to the Zillerthal, or who seek the Tauern mountain group by the way of the Rothwald valley.
The inhabitants of the valleys look after such pedestrians with a smile,--they cannot imagine what these fellows, with their long mountain-staffs and ice-picks, their knapsacks on their backs, and their hob-nailed shoes, according so ill with their city costume, can want among the mountains. That these people from the city should undertake such difficult and wearisome expeditions for pleasure, that they should at peril of their lives ascend the most inaccessible mountain-peaks to find a passage to a place which they could otherwise reach much more quickly and easily, seems to these honest countryfolk so silly that they have but one explanation for it, doubtless a harmless insanity; and they call these restless, indefatigable climbers of glaciers and snow-peaks, Bergfaxes (mountain fools). They are very fond of the Bergfaxes nevertheless, for they always need guides and carriers for their mountain expeditions, and are willing enough to pay their guilders for service rendered, thus bringing some cash at least into the retired valleys.
With the exception of the Bergfaxes, who sometimes take up their abode in Tausens for a few days to make the ascent of the Drei Maidelspitz or the Weisshorn from the Schwarzbachthal, or of the Spitzhorn from the Rothwalden, and who finally depart for the Zillerthal over the Schiechjoch, scarcely a traveller ever visits Tausens, although its magnificent situation makes it well worthy of a sojourn.
The view from the platform in front of the inn, which is also the post-office, is magnificent, and enchantingly lovely. Towards the south the eye revels for leagues in the broad green fertile valley of the Tausenser Aar, lying between two fir-clad mountain-ranges, and closed in in the far distance by the jagged and rocky peaks of the Dolomites. To the northeast lie the beautiful forests of the Rothwald, with the snowy pile of the Spitzhorn for a background, and to the northwest the two glorious glaciers of the Maidelspitz and the Weisshorn.
In this wondrously lovely country the ancient castle of Reifenstein is a most striking object, commanding as it does the entire panorama of mountain, river, and valley. The glorious old pile is still in tolerable repair,--a careful hand has stayed the ravages of time, which have buried in ruins so many of its contemporaries. Some of the old walls are crumbling, it is true, but the main structure is in thorough repair, and two huge round towers are propped from decay by a modern substructure. Although in the interior these towers are so ruinous that their summits are inaccessible, their massive masonry defies the tempests that rage against them from the south and northeast, and will still for coming centuries bear witness to the despotic sway once exercised over the three valleys by the lords of Reifenstein.